The Dive Steam Kettle Cooking in Temple City serves big orders of boiling pan roasts of seafood and more. In addition to great food and a few culinary oddities like Hot Cheetos Truffle Mac, expect a full bar and a fine list of exotic cocktails. (Photo by Merrill Shindler)

Like the many (many!) restaurants that followed The Boiling Crab into the wonderful world of Asian-inflected Cajun cooking, The Dive Steam Kettle Cooking is riding along on the steam kettle trend, which began with Chef Michael Ritter’s Steam Kettle Cooking in Las Vegas, and has since spread throughout Southern California, with branches in nearby Alhambra, along with Santa Ana, Huntington Beach, Chino Hills and Anaheim.

But The Dive got to Temple City first. And it did it in the restaurant-obsessive Camellia Square — a destination so popular on weekends, you should probably bring food and drink along to maintain yourself while looking for parking.

The Dive — a curious name for a restaurant that doesn’t look at all like either a submarine, or a low-rent booze hall — sits at the Rosemead Boulevard and Las Tunas Drive entrance to the Square, right behind a giant Chinese tea pot water fountain, that’s eternally overflowing a tea cup.

A steam kettle at The Dive Steam Kettle Cooking (Photo by Merrill Shindler)

Steamed clams at The Dive Steam Kettle Cooking i Temple City (Photo by Merrill Shindler)

It’s a restaurant with a full bar, and a list of exotic cocktails. Though based on a few visits, the bar doesn’t seem to be the main draw. It’s the hot bubbling kettles of pan roast which sits behind a counter where you can sit and watch the chefs work their magic, mixing a tomato-cream sauce with celery, onion and green peppers, and then the seafood of your choice — lobster, crawfish, blue crab, king crab, clams, mussels, shrimp and oysters, along with chicken and andouille sausage.

There are some options for mixing and matching: The House Specialty pan roast includes crawfish, blue crab, clams, mussels and shrimp. And it’s served over a choice of jasmine rice or linguine. Though I tend to dive (as it were) right into the seafood, ripping the shells apart, making a general mess, getting splatters all over whatever I was foolish enough to wear. (As at Boiling Crab, not only will your food come home with you on your clothing, it doesn’t wash out, pretty much ever. Be warned.)

Should you prefer gumbo to a pan roast, with its andouille sausage and okra, the choice of seafood is exactly the same — though the flavor is, arguably, even more intense, more down-home Cajun. And if either of these house specialties seem like more than you want to commit to – well, there’s a lots more menu here. Indeed, despite these being the defining dishes, they actually take up a small portion of the menu. And the rest of the menu is filled with twists and turns — from Cajun classics on the one hand, to oddities like the “Chowder Frots” on the other.

The Frots are a mix of french fries and Tater Tots, served in a small cast iron pan, drowned under a big splatter and splash of clam chowder, melted cheddar, bacon bits, onions and tomatoes. It’s spicy, it’s tasty — and its really messy, a bit like a home cook deciding to just put everything in the pantry and fridge together to see what happens. (Anyone who’s mixed Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup with French’s Fried Onions, and green beans knows the experience. Which means all of us.)

The Hot Cheetos Truffle Mac is a near cousin of the Frots, another dish that seems to have more ingredients than it needs, with the option for crawfish if you want.

But The Dive isn’t all about random (and admittedly tasty) combinations of ingredients. The steamed clams or mussels are pretty straight forward, though do be prepared for a lot of garlic in the broth. There’s bacon-wrapped shrimp, which is always a welcome addition to any meal, bringing two of everyone’s favorite ingredients to the table. Shrimp ’n’ grits is a proper Low Country creation, down-home as biscuits and gravy.

Though the “made from scratch traditional” clam chowder is a bit of a heads scratcher, tasting more of thickener than of clams. (With a $1 extra charge for bacon. Isn’t bacon a defining ingredient in “traditional”?)

If you want to continue the Cajun theme, there’s jambalaya, a seafood boil, Cajun fries, half a dozen po’boy sandwiches, and both bread pudding and beignet for dessert. If you want to go further afield, there’s cioppino and bouillabaisse. If you want to stay in California, there’s a Brussels sprout salad, and a Caesar, both with an option of chicken or salmon — blackened of course.

The cocktails are the usual assortment of quirky mixes. Though I will give a tip o’ the toque to The Dive for carrying Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey. Seriously. I’ve only read about it, and thought it was a wacko bit of wit in The Onion. It’s not. It’s on the liquor list. I figure if someone comes up with a Gumbo Flavored Vodka, it will be on the list as well.

Atmosphere: At the very front of the amazing Camellia Square, one of the very best restaurant malls in the Valley, this Cajun outlier offers big orders of boiling pan roasts of seafood and more, cooked in full view at a counter, along with oddities like Hot Cheetos Truffle Mac.

What the stars mean: Ratings range from 4 stars to zero. 4 stars is world-class (worth a trip from anywhere). 3 stars is most excellent, even exceptional (worth a trip from anywhere in Southern California). 2 stars is a good place to go for a meal (visit if you’re in the neighborhood). 1 star is a place to go if you’re hungry and it’s nearby. Zero stars is not worth writing about.

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